Nation/World Briefs

SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- President Bush began the new year on Sunday at the bedsides of wounded servicemen and women, and awarded nine Purple Hearts to U.S. troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The president boarded the Marine One presidential helicopter before dawn on his ranch in Crawford and flew more than an hour to Randolph Air Force Base. His motorcade drove to Brooke Army Medical Center, a 224-bed hospital at nearby Fort Sam Houston, to meet with about 50 injured members of various branches of the armed forces and their families.

The president, who was flying back to Washington after visiting the military hospital, has no public events scheduled today, a federal holiday. He is to spend the rest of his first week of 2006 focused on Iraq and the economy.

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NATIONAL BRIEFING

Vaccine supply weak spot in U.S. bird flu preparations, expert says

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The U.S. is making fast progress in preparations for a bird flu pandemic, including measures to close down schools and quarantine the sick, but vaccine supplies remain inadequate, health officials said Sunday.

"We've got a lot of work to do," said Julie Gerberding, director of the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, citing "bottlenecks" in vaccine production and the delivery of health care if there's an outbreak.

A strain of a bird flu that has killed more than 70 people in Asia since it first appeared two years ago has sparked concerns of a super-flu that could kill millions worldwide. Almost all the victims were in close contact with poultry.

While stressing that chances remain slight, health experts have said it could lead to a global pandemic if the bird flu mutates to start spreading easily among people. The U.S., which has not seen any signs of the strain in birds or people, has only enough doses now for 4.3 million people.

President Bush last week signed a bill that gives $3.8 billion to prepare for bird flu and liability protections for flu drug manufacturers.

Sheik Darham al-Damaa, secretary-general of a government council in Marib Province, said negotiations were continuing for the release of the two Italian men, according to the Web site of Yemen's ruling party.

The kidnapping came a day after the government negotiated the release of a family of five Germans who also were taken hostage while on vacation.

INTERNATIONAL BRIEFING

Residents flee as wildfires race through southeastern Australia

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Walls of flames 100 feet high swept through parched eucalyptus forests Sunday as several fires raged out of control in southeastern Australia, injuring one man and destroying several homes and seven fire vehicles.

Dozens of people fled their homes north of Sydney -- some using boats -- as hundreds of firefighters battled flames lapping the edges of the city. Authorities on Sunday closed the main freeway heading north from the city as a huge pall of gray smoke drifted across the area, but the road reopened today following overnight rains that helped bring the fires under control.

Dozens of fires burned across New South Wales state, fanned by hot dry winds from the Australian Outback as temperatures reached 111 degrees in Sydney -- the hottest New Year's Day on record for the city.

Rebel Talbert, a spokeswoman for the fire service, said the fires appeared to be man-made, though whether "that's deliberate or accidental really remains to be seen." There had been no lightning strikes, she told Nine News.

INTERNATIONAL BRIEFING

Border offensives have sapped insurgency, commander says

AL ASAD, Iraq (AP) -- Recent offensives near the Iraqi border with Syria have dealt a significant blow to al-Qaida and cut off the group's ability to smuggle in foreigners through the volatile western area to join the insurgency, a U.S. commander said Sunday.

Maj. Gen. Steve Johnson, commander of the Second Marine Expeditionary Force Forward, said the operations had "neutralized" the group's ability to use the vast Euphrates River valley to organize and attract followers.

The fighting helped restore Iraqi control of the border with Syria to eliminate smuggling lines and paved the way for successful Sunni Arab regional participation in Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, he said in an interview with a small group of reporters at this dusty U.S. base in al Asad, in western Anbar province near the Syrian border.

He said U.S. forces had "dealt the enemy a ... significant blow out here in the western Euphrates, knocked him off of his stride, took away his areas where he was congregating, made it difficult for him to organize, and cut into his rat lines that run through this particular part of the country."

He also said the number of suicide bombings had gone down, without giving specific numbers.